Catalyst 1: Lesson 2: Doctrine of God

(continued from lesson 1)

Review:

So, the Trinity is a biblical doctrine through and through. It’s not something we could argue out on our own, and it has no analogy in nature. All the silly illustrations you hear about the three phases of water, or the three parts of an egg, they all break down eventually. The Trinity is beyond our ability to grasp fully, and yet it’s been revealed as clearly true. And the fact that it has should be great comfort for us, which leads to one nal question, God today, though the first two topics we’ll explore aren’t as much attributes as descriptions of God’s essential nature. After all, the attributes of God aren’t different hats he wears at different times. God isn’t divided. He is, forever and always, ALL of these attributes. Each attribute is merely a biblical category that provides us with language to describe various inter-related and united aspects of God’s character and greatness.

On that note, it’s appropriate to start with:

1. The Unity of God God is the only Divine Being. He has a total unity of character. In other words, everything he does is fully consistent with all of his attributes; there are no contradictions in his character. He doesn’t have a “good side” or a “bad side” – he’s all good. He’s not different in the Old Testament from the New Testament. He is one in essence, He is indivisible. This is often referred to as the simplicity of God, which basically means that God’s attributes aren’t little bits that you add up together and get God, like parts of a car. Instead, each attribute is completely true of God and all of His character.

We see this in Exodus 34:6-7, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” God is both merciful and just, and though those traits may seem at odds, they are resolved in Jesus who mercifully dies in the place of sinners, thus vindicating the claims of God’s justice.

So God is one, and he’s not a schizophrenic God. He always is, and always acts, according to his united character. But that’s not all. God has clearly revealed himself in three distinct persons:

2. God is Triune I’m aware that when we discuss the doctrine of the Trinity, it feels like our brains are turning to mush and many conclude that this is an abstract idea, best left to philosophers in cluttered libraries. It feels unrelated to day-by-day Christian life. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yes, God’s triune nature stretches our understanding. It’s mysterious. But the Triune God is beautiful, delightful, and worthy of our awe. It makes all the difference in the world that God is not a lonely, solitary being but rather a trinity in unity, existing in eternal love and fellowship and extending that harmonious love to us. I’m not overstating when I say that the trinity makes all the difference between true Christianity and false understandings of God. Let’s look at the Trinity, appropriately, by answering three questions: What does the doctrine of the Trinity mean?

“God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.”- Wayne Grudem (1)

This means that God is one in essence. Theologians in the 4th century argued from scripture that the Son and Spirit are equal in substance to the Father. That is, there is only one being known as God. Scripture consistently states this.

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Isaiah 45:5 ESV

5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me,

But this God is a unity of three distinct “persons.”

The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Each person plays a distinct role in the harmonious work of redemption. The Belgic Confession of 1561 put it this way:

“The Father is the cause, origin, and source of all things, visible as well as invisible. The Son is the Word, the Wisdom, and the image of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the eternal power and might, proceeding from the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, this distinction does not divide God into three, since Scripture teaches us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each has a distinct subsistence [which means personhood] distinguished by characteristics—yet in such a way that these three persons are only one God.... These persons, thus distinct, are neither divided nor fused or mixed together.”

So, the three persons of the Trinity are distinct – eternally so. They’re not just avatars or modes that God has adopted at different stages in history. They have existed together as one God forever in total love, unity and delight. How does Scripture teach the doctrine of the Trinity?

Good question! You won’t find the word, “trinity,” anywhere in Scripture. It was actually first coined by Tertullian after the generation of the Apostles. But it’s a helpful word. It summarizes all that Scripture speaks regarding the relationship of the Godhead. The Bible clearly teaches that there is only one God, as we’ve already seen in the verses I’ve mentioned earlier.

And yet it also teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. But scripture teaches that the Son and Spirit are God too.

Jesus is the Word of God who “is God” according to John 1:1-4, who is called “Mighty God” according to Isaiah 9:6, and who is called “Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13. The Son forgives sins and accepts worship, both of which only God could do.

On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is present everywhere according to Psalm 139, comprehends and reveals God’s thoughts according to 1 Cor 2, creates life and new life according to Genesis 1 and John 3, and throughout scripture such things are only true of God.

Finally, there are several key passages where we see the three persons of the Trinity mentioned together and distinguished from one another. Matt 3:16: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

So, the Trinity is a biblical doctrine through and through. It’s not something we could argure out on our own, and it has no analogy in nature. All the silly illustrations you hear about the three phases of water, or the three parts of an egg, they all break down eventually. The Trinity is beyond our ability to grasp fully, and yet it’s been revealed as clearly true. And the fact that it has should be great comfort for us, which leads to one nal question,

Why does the Trinity Matter? Simply put, the Triune nature of God shouldn’t make us run away from God scratching our heads, but run to him as our loving Creator, Redeemer, and Life-Giver. God as Trinity, however, has always been a fountain of love, and it is only appropriate for the three persons of the Godhead to overflow in self-giving love toward us. As the Trinity, he saves us from our own self-love. That’s what we see in Eph 1:3-14, easily one of the most glorious passages of scripture: the Father predestines us to be adopted as sons, the Son sheds his blood to redeem us, and the Spirit seals our inheritance. So, we should praise and love our triune God. 3. God’s Omniscience – His Perfect Knowledge Omniscient means “all knowing.” In 1John 3.20 we read that, “[God] knows everything,” the past, present, and future. But God not only knows what will happen, but what would happen if we were to have left for church an hour later and not come to core seminar. He knows the actual and the possible.

God’s knowledge isn’t like ours. It’s not obtained from experience or observation. God knows our every thought before we think it. He knows our every act before we do it. God knows when you were born because He knit you together in your mother’s womb. And he knows when you’re going to die because He has numbered your days. This means nothing surprises him. Surprises shake us to the core, but not God.

We don’t know our future, but God does, which should motivate us to prayerful trust. God answers prayer, but our prayers don’t provide God with new information. God knows what we need, which means we don’t need to panic as if God is unaware. Rather our prayers are the humble petitions of weak and needy people to the all wise, all powerful, all knowing God who delights to hear the needs of his children.

Communicable Attributes

Now we can turn our attention to the Communicable Attributes. These refer to characteristics that God shares with those whom he transforms through Christ by grace.

4. Truthfulness God is true, and all of his knowledge and words are the standard of truth. This means not only that everything God tells us is accurate, but that he will be faithful to all his promises. Thus Proverbs 30:5 reminds us, “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” So my brothers and sisters, God is dependable. Satan will lie to you whenever he can to get you to distrust God. That’s been his way since the garden. But God will never lie to you. Hebrews 6:18, it is impossible for God to lie.

5. Wisdom But God is also wise. Wisdom is the practical use of knowledge. It’s knowledge applied. Thus God’s wisdom means that God always chooses the best goals, and the best means to those goals.

Scripture confirms this wisdom of God. Job says that God’s wisdom is profound (Job 9:4) and that counsel and understanding are His (Job 12:13). We can see this wisdom shown in creation. In Jeremiah 10:12-13 we read that, “God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.” We also see God’s wisdom in the plan of redemption. God’s wisdom and power are perfectly shown in the gospel where we see that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18).” 1 Corinthians 1-3 is all about the wisdom of God in the gospel.

Application: Paul in 1 Corinthians proves that man’s wisdom is broken and corrupt but God’s wisdom is what humanity needs. The whole book of Proverbs commends wisdom, for God is wise and calls us to the joy and delight that we can know when we walk according to his wisdom.

6. Holiness Holiness refers to God’s “otherness,” or his majesty. He is set apart from all things and yet a personal God. The fact that he’s not like us. He’s transcendent. It’s the amazing vision of Isaiah 6, where seraphim cover their faces and exclaim, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Holiness also refers to God’s “purity.” He’s ethically distinct from us, separate from sin. Which is why Isaiah will go on in that vision: “‘woe to me,’ I cried, ‘for I am a man of unclean lips.’” God is wholly unlike us, totally clean and radiant, without spot or blemish, pure and blameless. And yet, though God in his holiness is totally unapproachable, he is also irresistibly beautiful. He is unstained by sin. He is the fountain of light.

God’s holiness is awe-inspiring to us as mankind. I recently saw a picture of an astronaut, holding a sign while walking in space that read, “I came to the heavens and I don’t see God anywhere.” Someone who posted the pic responded, take off your mask and you will see him. It is sad to me that someone surround by the awe-inspiring creation of God cannot be enveloped by what He made, and respond with defiance of Him.

As he is holy, so we are to be holy. So holiness isn’t determined by what we do or don’t do, but to whom we belong. It’s not just being separate from something, but devoted to somebody (God). Fundamentally, pursuing holiness – which we do because the Holy Spirit lives in us – is how we get to reveal every day that heaven is our hope. That we live for better desires, because we have a better savior.

7. Justice/Righteousness But God isn’t only holy, but just and righteous. Justice and righteousness stem from similar root words in Greek. They refer to strict adherence to a law or standard. God always is right and he always acts according to what is good, right, and just.

God’s justice and righteousness are also our assurance that sins and wrongs will one day be dealt with. [Mention most prominent crimes and acts of terrorism recently...] But God is righteous. He will judge. So we need not despair. Romans 12:19, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Of course, God’s justice applies to all without favoritism – including us. He will deal with us according to our adherence or lack of conformity to his laws. And that is why he sent Christ to be a sacrfice for sinners. God’s Son himself received the sentence of justice that we deserved. Romans 3.25: “God put [Christ Jesus] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifer of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

8. Goodness/Love Finally, God is a God of goodness and love. He is perfectly good. He always does what is best, and is the source of all that is good. In James 1.17 we read that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

God’s goodness manifests itself in several ways. He is benevolent and cares for his creation in his common grace, as we see in Psalm 147. God’s goodness is also demonstrated in his love and grace towards the undeserving. It’s shown in his long-suering; He is slow to anger (Exod. 34:6).

By way of application, what does God’s goodness mean for us?

Think of all the ways that we doubt God’s goodness. When we sin. When we fear for the future. When we fear men more than God. When we worry. God’s goodness invites us to cast our cares on him because he cares for us. It reminds us that he will always do what is best. He is a good God.

When it comes to love, we have a difficult time thinking biblically. Today people aren’t surprised when you tell them “God loves you.” But they’re furious when you tell them God is a holy and righteous judge. That’s because we’ve separated divine love from the other complementary truths about God. Yes, he is loving, but he always loves in harmony with his righteousness.

When Scripture speaks to God’s love, it refers to it in at least four different ways. This comes from Don Carson’s extremely helpful book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, which is short and easy to read.

First, there’s the unique love within the Trinity between the Father, Son and Spirit.

Second, God’s providential love over all he has made. Genesis 1, he made all of creation good. Matthew 6, he feeds even the sparrows.

Third is God’s salvific love toward a fallen world. John 3:16 – He showed his love for the world by sending Christ, and he lovingly invites all to repent.

But fourth, scripture also highlights God’s particular, elective, selecting love toward his elect – in passages like Deuteronomy 7, Ephesians 1, 1 John 4:10, and many more.

So we don’t want to absolutize any one of these ways of talking about God’s love. God’s love isn’t sentimental and warm feelings. God’s love refers to how he tenderly seeks the good of his creatures. And where can that good be found? Only in God himself. In his love, he gives himself. In his love, he draws us away from ourselves and to himself. And as he makes us like himself, we nd that we love him and love others, just as Jesus taught: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13.35